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Would anyone be interested in a collab?

Hello, I just noticed that the Ouya hit over 1,000 games recently, and so I figured why not celebrate. I was thinking maybe we could do a collab, so I wanted to see if anyone would be interested. Alright, so here's how it's going to work, I guess. The game is going to be a platformer (something really simple and fun to make, so everyone can work on it), and be released as freeware, and the source will be public domain (to encourage people to make more games). I have a good deal of experience making platformers on the Ouya actually, (though none of them are released, due to me loosing motivation), so if enough people are interested, I will quickly make a base game. This base game will include basic player physics, level loading, etc., only the bare minimum. Then comes the collab part, the code will be posted to github, and then anyone can make forks, pull requests, etc. At that point, I'll probably make a thread in the Upcoming Ouya Games announcing the game, and we can discuss the project direction from there, where everything will be designed from the ground up, the player graphics, enemy design, story, music, and all that jazz. So yeah, basically, I wanted to make a game that would hopefully give me way more reason to actually turn on my Ouya (which has been collecting dust since late this August, when I cancelled an unannounced Ouya game, oddly enough, not because I lost motivation, but because I wasn't going to be able to finish it before the month ended. It was a 1GAM game so...), and I'm sure most everyone here would like to make that happen too. So, yeah. Thank you for your time, and I hope this is the right subforum to post this.

I'm a proud Ouya owner and developer!

One of my Ouya exclusives has started development, you can check out the dev log here:

Count me in. By the way, on which game engine is this gonna be coded? I'm personally advanced as far as Game Maker Studio goes, and basic level for Unity3D. If it's in GM (any kind), I can help with any type of programming, from usual stuff like gravity/movement to added features like inventory, different items and their usage, diverse enemy AI and so on. I've seen plenty of people that are willing to share with us their sound effects and songs, even on this forum. And if we can't find game designers, we can just put together something from royalty free stocks online. I'm decent with photoshop, so I can help there too.

Not exactly dev related, but I can make the game speak Italian if you like.

Most of the time I keep my OUYA offline: please consider it before inserting a phone-home/always online DRM in your game. If you still plan to do so, please declare it. You don't want pirates, I don't want to be frauded.

I'm most proficient in Java, and as that's the standard for Android development, that's what I was going to make the base in (besides, I'm pretty sure Ouya/Android exporting for Game Maker costs money, I could be wrong though). I'm also at a very basic level with Unity. I wish I could say that I'd do the base in Unity instead if more of the participants prefer, but I use Linux, and from my experience and from what I've heard, Unity is a nightmare to get working with Linux (and there's no official way to do so anyways...)

As for those Photoshop skills, I'm sure that would help immensely, as not many indies are super good with graphics to be fair (I consider myself alright, but I can only do cartoony stuff, so unless that's the style we go with, I'm useless in that field).

@Jeffry84 Yes, that would be great actually. I try my best to use android's string management system for text in my games, which automatically swaps out text for translated versions if available, so if you know how to write the xml (which you might not even have to do, we might just send you a .txt file), it's not hard to translate the game into other languages, and the more people playing, the better!

EDIT: Oh, I forgot to mention. My goal for getting the base done is AT MOST about a week after Ludum Dare (preparing for that is my primary goal right now), so while I'll probably fiddle with it a bit solely because I like developing for the Ouya more than PC for some reason (despite the fact that developing for Android tends to annoy me in a lot of aspects, despite being nearly the same), preparing for the LD Jam is my main focus.

Might as well define what I'm going to be using for the project.

Programming Language: Java (unless more of our coders want to use something else)
Music Format: If you use a module composer program (I myself use OpenMPT, but there's others that exist), submit your music in pretty much any module format (.mod, .xm, .it, etc), otherwise, we'll be using .ogg, since .mp3s don't loop well in my experience. Sound effects will likely be .wav files.

That's pretty much all I can really think of, since stuff like graphic style will likely be decided later by a vote or something.

Last edited by GravityGamesInteractive; 12-02-2014 at 09:53 PM.
Reason: Mentioning Starting Date and Two Standards I forgot to mention...

I'm a proud Ouya owner and developer!

One of my Ouya exclusives has started development, you can check out the dev log here:

I'm most proficient in Java, and as that's the standard for Android development, that's what I was going to make the base in (besides, I'm pretty sure Ouya/Android exporting for Game Maker costs money, I could be wrong though). I'm also at a very basic level with Unity. I wish I could say that I'd do the base in Unity instead if more of the participants prefer, but I use Linux, and from my experience and from what I've heard, Unity is a nightmare to get working with Linux (and there's no official way to do so anyways...)

As for those Photoshop skills, I'm sure that would help immensely, as not many indies are super good with graphics to be fair (I consider myself alright, but I can only do cartoony stuff, so unless that's the style we go with, I'm useless in that field).

@Jeffry84 Yes, that would be great actually. I try my best to use android's string management system for text in my games, which automatically swaps out text for translated versions if available, so if you know how to write the xml (which you might not even have to do, we might just send you a .txt file), it's not hard to translate the game into other languages, and the more people playing, the better!

EDIT: Oh, I forgot to mention. My goal for getting the base done is AT MOST about a week after Ludum Dare (preparing for that is my primary goal right now), so while I'll probably fiddle with it a bit solely because I like developing for the Ouya more than PC for some reason (despite the fact that developing for Android tends to annoy me in a lot of aspects, despite being nearly the same), preparing for the LD Jam is my main focus.

Might as well define what I'm going to be using for the project.

Programming Language: Java (unless more of our coders want to use something else)
Music Format: If you use a module composer program (I myself use OpenMPT, but there's others that exist), submit your music in pretty much any module format (.mod, .xm, .it, etc), otherwise, we'll be using .ogg, since .mp3s don't loop well in my experience. Sound effects will likely be .wav files.

That's pretty much all I can really think of, since stuff like graphic style will likely be decided later by a vote or something.

Ok, java, but which program are you using? So I can get it myself as well and be on the same wavelength when we test etc. (Example: I use Eclipse for Java) Also, from what I gathered you want to hardcode the whole thing without the need for a gaming framework like GM, Unity, (I'm assuming we're going to compile it in the OUYA SDK) which is fine but I doubt we could meet the deadline of a week. Since you mentioned a platformer, can we go with a side-scrolling one? or do you prefer a top-down? or? Let's pick a topic, choose a main chara, theme, and start coding. That way we can just add the rest of the game design objects later. For now we can use substitutes.

Make that new thread and let's see what kind of objects we need and I can create some. (well technically anyone can do that for the substitutes since it doesnt matter how they look as long as they have the right shape)

Ok, java, but which program are you using? So I can get it myself as well and be on the same wavelength when we test etc. (Example: I use Eclipse for Java) Also, from what I gathered you want to hardcode the whole thing without the need for a gaming framework like GM, Unity, (I'm assuming we're going to compile it in the OUYA SDK) which is fine but I doubt we could meet the deadline of a week. Since you mentioned a platformer, can we go with a side-scrolling one? or do you prefer a top-down? or? Let's pick a topic, choose a main chara, theme, and start coding. That way we can just add the rest of the game design objects later. For now we can use substitutes.

Make that new thread and let's see what kind of objects we need and I can create some. (well technically anyone can do that for the substitutes since it doesnt matter how they look as long as they have the right shape)

ps: for sound effects I use Fruit Loops Studio.

Oh, I meant that I wanted to get the codebase done within a week, not the game. I'm aiming to have the github done in that time. The game will take as long as it needs to take. I was intending to make a side scroller, yes, though that may change if a large number of people would rather go a different route. Pretty much I was going to get the very basic collision detection, graphic drawing, etc, and we'd expand it based on what direction we choose to go. I'm glad I checked back right before I started, apparantly I was still a bit unclear. I'm using Eclipse with the Ouya SDK, and a library to load module music files (I forget what it's called, I'll look it up when I redownload it). I'd prefer not to use any external libraries, but if most of the coders we get are used to them, then I can probably port the code over very easily. Once I get a base uploaded to github, I'll probably make a thread in the Upcoming Ouya Games category. If there are any other questions, or if you have any recommendations of simple things that should be in the first github commit, please feel free to ask!

I'm a proud Ouya owner and developer!

One of my Ouya exclusives has started development, you can check out the dev log here:

Oh, I meant that I wanted to get the codebase done within a week, not the game. I'm aiming to have the github done in that time. The game will take as long as it needs to take. I was intending to make a side scroller, yes, though that may change if a large number of people would rather go a different route. Pretty much I was going to get the very basic collision detection, graphic drawing, etc, and we'd expand it based on what direction we choose to go. I'm glad I checked back right before I started, apparantly I was still a bit unclear. I'm using Eclipse with the Ouya SDK, and a library to load module music files (I forget what it's called, I'll look it up when I redownload it). I'd prefer not to use any external libraries, but if most of the coders we get are used to them, then I can probably port the code over very easily. Once I get a base uploaded to github, I'll probably make a thread in the Upcoming Ouya Games category. If there are any other questions, or if you have any recommendations of simple things that should be in the first github commit, please feel free to ask!

Thanks for answering. Looking forward to that thread. I'll put my thoughts/ideas on the game there. (I have a lot, plus waay more questions, hehe)